1. Field
This disclosure relates to methods for sharing music between music players, more particularly to methods for sharing music between music players without using a host.
2. Background
Personal electronic devices of all types have become prevalent in everyday use. Cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, portable music players such as MP3 (Moving Pictures Expert Group, Layer 3) players, as well as other types of music players can be found everywhere.
With the advent of digital music being readily available, users have a new source of musical content. In most uses, the content resides in relatively small digital files that can be exchanged between users. However, transferring content from one user to another currently involves a host, usually a personal computer or network. One user transfers the file from that user""s music player to a host, either a computer or a network. Alternatively, the sending user can use a different host to transfer to the host. The other user can then access the file. Transfers may include making copies of the file.
A problem may arise in the area of copyright protection or content protection. If the music was obtained through use of a secure format, such as SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) or DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems, such as Liquid Audio, interTrust, etc. where the files cannot typically be shared between users. It would therefore be useful, to have a method and apparatus that allowed users to share content directly between music players, as well as to allow them to do so without violating any protection of the content afforded the content creator.